The Seventh Most Important Thing Read Free Page B

Sometimes when Arthur’s mom was upset, she didn’t make much sense.
    “No, you didn’t,” Arthur replied, even though she had already told him. Twice.
    “Do you think they’ll ever let you come home again?”
    Arthur sighed. “I don’t know, Mom.”
    But he didn’t think the chances were very good.
    —
    When court resumed after lunch, Arthur was called to the front. He figured he was doomed when the judge said, “This is a highly unconventional sentence, young man,” before he had reached the judge’s bench.
    Earlier that day, Arthur had seen kids who had stolen a few lousy bags of chips and candy get sent back to juvie for sixty days or more by Judge Warner. Everybody said he was one of the toughest judges around. So Arthur knew something “unconventional” had to be pretty bad.
    “In other words,” the judge continued sternly, glaring at Arthur, “it is not the punishment I would have chosen for you.”
    It wasn’t hard to imagine the various punishments the judge might have chosen. Arthur had already pictured all of them.
    The judge glanced toward the Junk Man, who had returned to his seat in the third row and was sitting with his hands folded in his lap. “However, Mr. Hampton has made it clear to me that he is not interested in retribution, but in redemption.” He looked at Arthur. “Do you know what
redemption
means?”
    Arthur thought it might have something to do with church, but he was pretty sure the judge wasn’t allowed to sentence people to go to church.
    He shook his head.
    “Well, you ought to know. Look it up later.
Re-demp-tion.
” The judge gestured impatiently at the courtroom. “I don’t have time to be everybody’s schoolteacher here. As you can see,” he continued, pointing toward the Junk Man, “you have left Mr. Hampton unable to do his work as a result of his injuries, so he has offered an unusual proposal for me to consider.”
    The judge fixed his gaze on Arthur. “Instead of sentencing you to the Juvenile Detention Home for an
exceedingly
long time—which I won’t hesitate to do if I ever see you in my courtroom again—Mr. Hampton has requested that you be assigned to work for him until his arm has healed.”
    The courtroom behind Arthur buzzed with confusion. What had the judge just said? The brick-throwing kid was being sentenced to work for the guy
he’d tried to kill
? Had Judge Warner completely lost his mind?
    Arthur stared at the judge, as confused and startled as everyone else. Work for the Junk Man? What could the judge possibly be thinking?
    In spite of himself, Arthur spoke up. He made sure to use the Junk Man’s real name, although it still seemed strangely unreal to him. “What sort of work does Mr. Hampton do, sir?”
    The judge arched his eyebrows. “You don’t know?”
    “I’m not sure,” Arthur mumbled. He couldn’t imagine any judge would knowingly sentence a kid to dig through people’s garbage looking for wine bottles and busted-up furniture. Did the old man have another job nobody knew about?
    The judge smiled in a rather smug way. “Well, I guess you’ll soon find out, won’t you, Mr. Owens?”
    And with that, Arthur Owens was allowed to go home.

SIX
    G oing home was the best part of Arthur’s sentence. He decided he’d worry about the other parts later. Anything was better than a ride back to juvie in the grim gray school bus with bars on the windows and a driver with a gun.
    For once, he didn’t mind having to kick his sister’s pile of stuffed animals out of the way when he walked into their bedroom. At least he had a bedroom he could walk into.
    The frosting-pink bedspread on Barbara’s side of the room didn’t bug him nearly as much as it usually did either. He didn’t even care that his sister had left a large crayon picture on his bed showing Barbara, frowning, with the words
Don’t Do Any More Bad Things, Arthur
underneath it.
    He was just glad to be home.
    —
    “We need to have a talk,” his mom said,